This Is Us Star Chrissy Metz Opens Up About Wearing a Fat Suit

On This Is Us, Chrissy Metz plays Kate, an overweight character who struggles with weight loss, size discrimination, and serious emotional issues that are, in part, responsible for her size.

Chrissy Metz as Kate in This Is Us.

NBC/ Getty Images

While the role has thrust Chrissy into the spotlight as a major player in the body size acceptance movement, it turns out Chrissy has previously been asked to accentuate her appearance onscreen by wearing a fat suit, according to a People interview in which she reminisced about another role that helped propel her acting career.

In the interview, Chrissy spoke of a panic attack that landed her in the hospital on her 30th birthday, a wake-up call that provoked her to lose 100 pounds by eating a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet and walking for 20 minutes a day. Shortly after, she was cast in American Horror story as "Fat Lady" Ima Wiggles.

Chrissy Metz as Ima Wiggles in American Horror Story.

FX Networks

Chrissy Metz as Ima Wiggles in American Horror Story.

FX Networks

"I was thrilled to find out that I wasn't big enough," she told Yahoo in 2014, of finding out she'd have to wear a fat suit. "It was a first in my life. It was liberating."

Getty Images

In the same Yahoo interview, Chrissy goes on to discuss a time she wore her fat suit into her trailer and got stuck the doorway. "I had to suck it in, squish it, knead it, hold the dress, and slowly pull it through until I stumbled down the stairs. I almost wish someone had been there to see, because they would have been laughing their butt off."

That was a sobering experience: "I thought, ‘What if I become that heavy and can’t walk around or get stuck in the doorframe? I was like, ‘I don’t want this for me,’ ” she told People.

No one has inferred that Chrissy wears a fat suit on the set of This Is Us. However, Chrissy has mentioned that she'd like to lose weight, “not for anybody but myself. … I want to have a fit, healthy body and not have to be put in a box. I don’t want to be limited by anything," she told People. And who knows what could happen if Chrissy's weight loss outpaces that of her character Kate?

Chrissy Metz as Kate in This Is Us.

NBC/ Getty Images

Regardless, Chrissy insists her show contract does not include an explicit weight-loss target or require weight-loss surgery, although she signed on with the understanding that her character Kate would ultimately — spoiler alert! — lose weight. And she's not mad about it.

"It’s about telling a story of a woman struggling with her weight, just as I have and still am," she told Peopleof her character. And there's no doubt countless viewers can totally relate.

Elizabeth NarinsSenior fitness and health editorElizabeth Narins is a senior editor at Cosmopolitan.com, where she covers fitness, celebrity body language, health news, healthy food, and more.When she's not working or working out, you'll find her honeymooning with her husband and Instagramming away.

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